1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicle travel control apparatus and a vehicle travel control method which generate a travel route that a vehicle is to take and generate a velocity pattern according to the travel route, and which control the traveling of the vehicle on the basis of the travel route and the velocity pattern.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vehicle travel control apparatus that generates a target velocity pattern for a travel route of a vehicle, and controls the traveling of the vehicle on the basis of the velocity pattern is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-296915 (JP-A-2007-296915). In the case of alerting a driver by giving a reaction force to the accelerator pedal under a predetermined condition, an inter-vehicle distance maintenance assist apparatus described in JP-A-2007-296915 induces the driver's operation of an accelerator pedal so as to achieve an accelerator operation amount that makes it easy for the driver to feel the reaction force of the accelerator pedal, by changing the relation between the accelerator operation amount and the drive torque into a correspondence relation therebetween that is different from an ordinary correspondence relation therebetween. In this manner, the inter-vehicle distance maintenance assist apparatus securely alerts the driver by giving a reaction force to the accelerator pedal.
In the inter-vehicle distance maintenance assist apparatus described in JP-A-2007-296915, the relation between the accelerator operation amount and the drive torque is changed so that the driver will easily feel the reaction force of the accelerator pedal, and therefore the driver can be alerted to the guidance of the accelerator operation. However, the provision of reaction force to the accelerator pedal for the purpose of guiding the driver's operation of the accelerator pedal sometimes does not match the driver's intention of the operation of the accelerator pedal. In such a case, the driver may feel discomfort, and drivability may deteriorate.